Seeing Through New Eyes

Well, Fall semester is coming to a close and the class I was working on is ending. And with this end comes some feelings of guilt and disappointment. I have slacked so much in working on the class, I have yet to finish all the readings let alone get much done on the assignments for the class. (Good think I'm not receiving anything that will go on a transcript-although that should never be the motivation for a class!) But, it has made me think that for all my ambitions and hopes in many areas, like life long learning, that I will fail miserably because I cannot keep up with something like this. I could come up with tons of excuses, but when it comes down to it, it wasn't at the top of my priorities and so was pushed aside. Oh, I will continue to read everything for the class, but I just couldn't get it done in the time frame of the class. I guess one of my big disappointments is my communication with this class and its professor will be lessened. Too bad-I'd love to keep...

As I continue reading about learning objects I am surprised how similar they are to a piece of artwork. Let me explain. Internal and external context of a learning object can add or take away quite a bit from it. The meaning and relevance of the object basically differs widely depending on many factors. When a painter creates a beautiful landscape painting of mountains like the Tetons, this person may or may not add little hints into the piece through colors, brush strokes, shapes, shadows, etc. of how they are feeling and thinking (internal context, remembering the degree of suggestion added to the painting). Some of this is conscious and some of it is not. So this painting now has relevance and a lot of meaning to the artist. In comes someone who has never seen a mountain range so large and magnificent. They are awe struck by the painting. And in some ways cannot imagine such a place (external context). In come someone who has actually visited this mountain range. Their perception of...

Ok, so now that I am back to work from maternity leave I am finding it much easier to concentrate on reading for Wiley's class. From what I have read I am finding the learning object debate comparable to the debate about Instructional Design. Looks like there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Although there are questions moving forward with instructional learning objects can successfully take place. So in the debate on a learning objects definition I believe that in this day and age learning objects should be considered digital. Other things like people and places are just that, people and places. They can be incorporated with an existing L.O., but why rename everything? As far as should content be explicitely instructional to be called a L.O., I don't have an answer but another question: If it can't be used for instructional purposes (even if you have to add context around it) why would it be considered a L.O.? And reusability, that's the million dollar ques...

I recently returned from the School for Scanning workshop in Boston sponsored by the Northeast Document Conservation Center . This was a great workshop for learning more about digital resources and how they fit into libraries, museums, and archives. It was very interesting to me to see how the world of resources is changing so much. I hope we can all keep up.

Friday was the big day. May 6, 2005 I graduated from Utah State University with my Master of Education degree in Instructional Technology (Educational Technology and Distance Education). I am so happy to be finished with formal school work for the time, and excited for the challenges that are ahead. I need to make sure I am continually learning. I've discovered as a graduate student that the constant push to learn needs to be intrinsic and not mandated by a class at school. Learning can be time consuming, but I'm planning on making my life a time of learning and growing so that some day I will be able to help others with their education.

So my cohort from graduate school now has a blog! It can be found at Cohort 5 . Those of us involved with it are hoping that many more people from our cohort will participate.

I presented a lesson last night in a class. It was a great experience to design the lesson and use the pedagogy and learning theory I felt appropriate for it. I remembered to take into consideration most of the ideals of teaching through distance education, like remembering to wear plain clothes, and look at the camera and not at the students in my room, etc. After it was all over, I realized that even though I'd practiced my lesson and tried so hard to remember all the good dist. ed. practices, that there were still things that slipped through the cracks or that could have been done better. Now I know that when you teach anything, you always think afterwards what could have been better, but I now know for myself how scary it could be for a teacher to teach this way when they have been used to a face to face classroom. I am comfortable with the technology, and I had a few questions at first. It was just a good testimonial to me of the importance of 'drilling' the ideals of ...

As I finish up my final project for graduate school, I have found that everything I've learned makes so much more sense once it has been put to the test. I guess it is one of those ideas where if you practice what you preach, the preaching side is respected more. It has been fun and stressful all in one to work with others (who at times I have felt know more than I do) and do the developing of this training. I think I have learned just as much about the programs I am training on as I'll and others will be able to teach. Even though formal schooling will be ending, I hope to be able to continue with my education in many ways. One way will be to continue working on projects. I have a project going where I am in need of more collaboration with others for the content of it. I think I'll send out a request for help on this. I've contacted several teachers in the K-12 area, but haven't heard much back. Now with my school work closing I need to focus on this more.

As I learn more and more about Instruction Design and Technology, I find that when I talk to people about it I realize more and more how much I know. Funny how that ties back to my beliefs that instruction, especially when technology is involved, works so much better when communication is invovled. It's this balance between the content, technology, and interaction that important. Wow, it's amazing that in everyday interactions the same concepts applies. I love it when I make connections!

It is interesting to me that collaboration works for a student and a teacher. As I work more on my graduate project I have found that any collaboration I can get makes the project so much easier. It got me thinking how much more can you learn either as a student, teacher, or designer when you actually work with others. It makes sense that you would want to collect as much expertise as you can to make a project work. There isn't just one person who can do it all. For students, and at least my own experiences, I have found that working together you learn so much more.

It is so interesting to me to find that I crave any kind of interaction I can get online. I stick mainly to those arenas where my friends and family are right now (basically email and chat), but I find myself being so disappointed when I haven't heard from specific people. Why would you create an email address to then never use it?

Now that I have been studying distance education I have found that so many people have no idea what I am talking about when they ask what I'm studying in school. Others say 'I don't think you can learn as much that way'. In some of my work I have found that many people are either scared or quite unaware of the potential with distance education, or at least the tools used in distance education (technical software). They believe that an interactive program won't be used by students because they don't want to take the time to watch the simulation and interact with it. To this I say, not everyone learns the same. Not everyone wants to ask questions. Some students want to just sit in front of the computer with some sort of tutorial and figure it out. Others will have nothing to do with this and need a person standing over them. Others want a paper they can follow. So with so many people really needing different ways to interact and learn programs and aspects of the c...

Even though classes have ended for the semester, I have had this nagging thought that I need to write this up. The last assignment in my class was dumped from our grades so I have taken my time in getting around to writing it. I wanted to get something written, but knew I needed some time to think. It isn’t a master piece, but here goes… C hapter 1 How do we learn? Can technology really enhance our ability to learn? What is the best tool to use? If you look back on your experiences as a kid what do you remember the most about learning? For me learning took place in a classroom and in doing my homework. Painstakingly longs amounts of time were put into this. But, I also learned through the social interactions I had. Yeah, at the time I would never have labeled it as “official learning” because that would have made me a geek, but now I crave social interactions whether they are face-to-face or online. There are so many people out there that know so much that I don’t know, and I wan...